Recently, as a resolution of a solid state image capturing element such as a CCD (charge coupled device) image sensor, and a CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) image sensor becomes higher, a demand for information device having an image capturing function such as a digital still camera, a digital video camera, a cellular phone, and a PDA (personal digital assistant) is suddenly increased.
Examples of a focusing control method which detects a distance to a main photographic subject to focus on the photographic subject include a contrast AF method and a phase difference AF (auto focus) method. The phase difference AF method may detect a focusing position with a high precision at a high speed as compared with the contrast AF method so that the phase difference AF method is largely adopted in various image capturing apparatuses. For example, Patent Document 1 discloses a color image capturing element in which image capturing pixel cells are two dimensionally arranged on a substrate of the image capturing element and pixel cells for phase difference detection are arranged therein in a predetermined layout.